Lets see some more dirty
May
07
Animal Fare Part 2: Wild Animals
I didn’t get a chance to show you these before the show opened, but in addition to the paintings of dogs that I did for the “Animal Fare” exhibition at the Christopher Queen Gallery, I painted these two larger works.
“Surveying The Hunt,” 20×30 in. oil on linen. $3000
This painting was the result of a friend of mine having a cool prop to use for a special occasion like this. I borrowed his (stuffed)fox and took it to a favorite spot of mine with an awesome view. I waited for the right time to get a dramatic staging, and shot plenty of photos. I started this piece in the studio, but I was able to work on this piece from life a couple of times, plus I did some color studies of the view. Once I got to finish the background, I was able to work on the fox from life. It wasn’t going anywhere.
“Across Continents,” 20×30 in. oil on linen. $4500
This painting was made possible not from a trip to Africa, but from a trip a few hours north to a small coastal town named Point Arena. There you will find a place called the B. Bryan Preserve, which raises endangered African hoofed animals, like giraffes, zebras, and antelopes. These beautiful gentle creatures are sable antelopes, which are raised in the preserve. It is interesting to see them in a non-native habitat. I thought the Northern California coast would be an interesting juxtaposition to animals you normally only see in the African savannah.
It took some moving animals around in Photoshop, along with getting rid of some uninteresting pieces of reference to get the composition I liked. You’ll have to click on the picture to get an idea of the thick paint used to render the antelope.
Missed the reception? Click here for a video of the walkthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_gPLLr1AM
Bonus! While dropping these paintings off for the show last week, I did a quick painting of a favorite spot of mine that I’ve not painted in two and a half years. This was my 3rd time painting it, and I believe it’s my best yet by far.
You can see the other painting I did there by clicking this link. http://themainloop.blogspot.com/2010/06/self-critique.html I have definitely improved a lot from the last time I painted there, most notably in design and composition. I would never paint as much of the extraneous foreground foliage today like I did back then, and I simplify much better now than I did back then.
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About Sergio Lopez
North Bay Area based Fine Artist Sergio Lopez. Oil paintings, gouache paintings, plein air paintings, and charcoal drawings. http://www.themainloop.com
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May
04
Personal Demons: First spread
Here is the first spread in my sketchbook along with an incredibly nice blurb from Guillermo!
You can pre-order the book here(pre-orders also come with a signed print until May 15th) :)
About AllenWilliams
May
03
Personal Demons
Ok, so I just approved the proofs and sent my very first sketchbook into production!
Thanks to Dave Palumbo for all the advice!
Click here to jump to the order page!
About AllenWilliams
May
01
I tried thinking again…
Hello internets,
I’m not sure if maybe it’s better if I just stay in the shadows, but here I am making a post after all these measurements of time since the last time I’ve posted! I’ve been wandering around…going to faraway places, riding airplanes, avoiding the touch of strangers, crying myself to sleep…
Back in June I quit my job in Singapore and moved to San Francisco to study at the Safehouse Atelier, ran out of money, went back to Maine while I did some job interviews and more freelance work, and then moved [back] to Shanghai…I need to stop moving so much. Every time I move, I’m telling myself this, and then I end up moving again and again and again.
So, a while back I made a post on my personal artblog that was geared more towards getting presentable thumbnails [i had too many coffees] and then I started wondering… if I could take it a bit further and make a final image with a similar approach.
This has been sitting on my SSD since October already, and overall, I suppose I’d consider it a half-success at best. Maybe 1/3 succcess. I think it’s not really something useful, but I find it’s something interesting to think about.
The end result was hampered by my own ineptitude. Still need to sort out a lot of things in my head, and learn how do things work. There are also workflow issues if you don’t nail each step the first time. Going back and adjusting some things can be rather a bit inconvenient.
Layers of layers! I’m not sure this needs any explaining exactly. I think it’s generally a good idea to label your layers if you’ll ever need to go back to adjust them for any reason .Note that the grey fill and lines_copy are turned off in the end, as they were only a working aid…
I think secretly this might have been my main goal, actually…I thought it would be really cool to be able to swap out the patterns and have several ‘finished’ choices…like most things, it was cooler in my imagination.
To give you an idea of what size I’ve done this little creature, here is a working size example.
